Part 4 –Sunday, 11.29.15 (still)
P.S. Good News/Bad News/Bittersweet
The movie makes me cry. That means my heart is, in fact, not made of stone, as I have been fearing.
Actually, I start to cry before the movie is over. The movie simply primes the pump.
What makes me cry is the commercials; the ones about the homeless animals, those commercials that make me turn off the volume, leave the room, put my hands over my eyes and my ears, bury my head even further into the sand. Protect my heart.
What really brings on the waterfall, though, is what I find while I actively and purposefully distract myself from the movie and the commercials (and my day): my brother’s online wedding photo album.
I visit photos of my not-so-distant-past vacation. Piled on top of my not-so-distant-past plan for the future. All of this -- all of it -- serving to remind me that I want to taste life. Bittersweet, savory, salty, spicy, on my tongue, under my feet, alive on my skin and inside of my head. A sip or a taste or a nibble or fill me up. I want to open my heart. I don’t want to miss a minute.
I was there at the wedding. I made it (sugar-in-my-gas-tank-sabotage notwithstanding). I did not miss the wedding, the family time, the laughter, the fun, the joy. Nor did I miss the feeling of being a foreigner in a strange, forgotten place; for much of the time, I felt more like an observer than a participant (as it should be at a wedding. Or not: my perspective, my call, my bad, my stuff that gets in the way.) It was Tommy’s day and Jody’s day, and Tommy-and-Jody’s day, a day for everyone to be with everyone, everyone who matters to me in the world. The pictures I’m looking at tell a story, give me a memory and a foothold on a future, a fantasy future, a fantastic future. My call, my perspective, my choice. My deal, my action, mine, mine, mine. It’s all mine.
I refuse to miss the rest of my life. I may be a train wreck (right now), but I will be a survivor. (Look, over there, someone else who needs help!) And maybe in the process, I’ll figure out how to help myself.
This is my New Year’s resolution. And my prayer. Amen.